The Skull (1965)

My take: It’s a slow movie without much action, but it has an interesting premise, Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee.

Rating: 2.5 out of 4 stars

What happens when you dig up the skull of the Marquis de Sade and take it home? Very bad things. That is the basic premise of this film.

Peter Cushing stars in The Skull as Christopher Maitland, a collector and scholar in the area of demonology. A shady dealer in books and antiquities offers to sell Maitland a skull. But it isn’t just any skull. It’s the skull of the Marquis de Sade, and the skull itself is already tied to tales of violent death and murder.

Maitland initially balks at the dealer’s price. His interest is piqued once he learns that the skull was stolen from his fellow collector Sir Matthew Phillips, played by Christopher Lee. Phillips warns his against the skull. He claims that the Marquis de Sade was not actually a mad man. Instead, he was possessed by a demon, and that same demon now possesses the skull.

Of course Maitland now wants the skull, and you can imagine how well that goes.

As a result of the cerebral subject matter, the movie is slow-moving and lacking in much action. Additionally, the characters were ill-fitting or too undefined for the likes of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. I wanted more to see and learn more about them and less about the other side characters.

Finally, the film breaks the fourth wall if you happen to know anything about the Marquis de Sade. I won’t say more in case you don’t know about him; it may be that you actually enjoy the movie without knowledge of his life.

With the scholarly nature of the film, I would recommend this to fans of the Ninth Gate. I would also recommend it to fans of Peter Cushing. Otherwise, I think it is a film you can skip.

I watched it online on Daily Motion. Here is the trailer on YouTube: